Bloomingdale's Delivers Targeted Messages at POS

ORLANDO, FL -- Bloomingdale's is delivering customer information directly to the sales floor in a bid to drive revenue, said a speaker at the Winter 2003 National Center for Database Marketing Conference here yesterday.

Bloomingdale's began the program Oct. 28. The company sends "messages to the point of sale for the sales associates to read to the customers," said Anne McAndrew, director of clientele, marketing effectiveness and strategy group at Bloomingdale's, a division of Federated Department Stores.

For example, Bloomingdale's may sponsor a "Girls Night Out" for the Young East Sider brand of clothes. For five days before the event, a message may appear on the screen of the sales associate's cash register when a customer buys the brand advising the associate to promote the event.

The key is delivering relevant messages to Bloomingdale's best customers, McAndrew said. Though the program has had a strong response, she said, Bloomingdale's cannot currently track who is being told about the events or their behavior afterward but plans to do this soon.

The sales associates use data gleaned from a database that includes 8 million households, 20 million individual customers and 24 months of transactions.

"The sales associate is the connector between the customer and the organization," McAndrew said. "With CRM, we want to give to our sales associates all of these tools that we have managed to capture and package and generate so they can now use it to build a relationship with their customers."